Experiencing the Battle of Cannae
Tides of History
Wondery / Patrick Wyman
4.8 • 6.3K Ratings
🗓️ 1 May 2025
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Battle of Cannae was the worst defeat Rome ever suffered, and one of the worst battlefield losses in history. What was it like to be there? We explore the battle from the perspective of a common Roman soldier and try to make sense of the unexplainable.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Tides of History early and ad-free right now. |
| 0:04.6 | Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. |
| 0:09.2 | The young Roman had been so convinced that they would win. |
| 0:24.6 | The army had marched out of its camps and formed up into a dense block. The feeling of power was palpable. |
| 0:26.6 | So many soldiers gathered up from every hamlet and city in Italy, |
| 0:30.6 | enough to crush the upstart Hannibal and his army of barbarians. |
| 0:34.6 | There were more people than the Roman had ever seen before, |
| 0:36.6 | even when his father had |
| 0:38.1 | taken him to the People's Assembly in the city to debate and vote. His father, the former |
| 0:43.0 | praetor, a senator, a straight-backed, scarred, respected embodiment of everything the young Roman |
| 0:48.3 | wanted to be. How could he ever live up to that man now in the aftermath of this disaster? |
| 0:54.6 | The young Roman was 17 years old, and it had been his first battle. |
| 0:58.8 | His father had secured him a position as a military tribute, |
| 1:01.9 | the same role the older man had occupied during his teens and 20s, |
| 1:05.3 | the first step to a glorious military and political career. |
| 1:09.0 | He had daydreamed about what his future would look like, |
| 1:11.8 | leading a legion into battle, his first speech in the forum, perhaps even the public recognition |
| 1:16.5 | of a triumph for victories yet to come. Rome would prosper, and so would he, just as generations |
| 1:22.5 | of young aristocrats had done their part for the Republic and gone down in legend as heroes. |
| 1:29.0 | But that wasn't what had happened. Instead of burying his new sword into a succession of willing enemies, he had watched |
| 1:34.2 | the utter destruction of the greatest army Rome had ever assembled. And he, as a 17-year-old |
| 1:40.1 | junior officer, was every bit as responsible for that disaster as the consuls who had led |
... |
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